And I Would Grow Old With You
by snappleducated
Summary: He imagines kissing the center of her palm. He imagines breaking every finger. — MinakoRyouji


**Entitled**: And I Would Grow Old With You  
**Fandom**: Persona 3 Portable  
**Length**: 1,000 words  
**Disclaimer**: I don't own P3P and etc.  
**Notes**: Totally not on my list, but whatever. Lists are for suckers. Also, this was meant to be like, 250 words. But then things escalated. I blame Pixie, because most things are her fault (it's just a universal law).  
**Summary**: He imagines kissing the center of her palm. He imagines breaking every finger. — MinakoRyouji

* * *

Then there is beauty.

His pulse quick-starts and the girl staring back at him is— is a girl, ordinary, two eyes and a lilt to her mouth, ankles crossed and tucked behind the leg of her chair. Knees together, one finger tapping, perfect posture.

His hands fidget.

* * *

In class he looks over, watching the way her chest shifts as she breaths, the exact color of her skin. How badly he wants her to look at him, and smile at him, and tell him all her secrets— the ones he thinks he half-knows. The things she would never tell anyone but him.

She looks over, blinks, smiles a little sheepishly, and half-waves.

He imagines kissing the center of her palm. He imagines breaking every finger.

* * *

He tries to stop himself. Puts a full five feet between them when they start out walking, but somehow the distance narrows, and narrows, until he's staring down at her and there's an eyelash stuck in the hidden shadows below her eyes. He hadn't noticed them before. She looks exhausted.

Without even thinking, he brushes it away. She's cooler than he'd thought. Almost as cold as him.

And as she begins to say something her attention shifts, and she calls a hello to some boy that she knows. Some boy who likes her, in the way that boys like girls, and who she only thinks of with passing fondness.

He touches the small of her back and pushes her forwards.

* * *

"She's pretty cute, huh?"

"Pardon?"

Junpei lies flat on his back, walks his feet up the wall, "I wouldn't get too attached," he says, and beneath the brotherly teasing is a note of warning.

Ryouji laughs. It kicks out of him, before he can stop it, and as he gasps he manages to ask, "Because of Aragaki?"

Junpei shoots him a fast look, "You heard about that?"

* * *

He wakes up in the middle of the night gasping-scared, and spends the next ten minutes shuddering under the blankets. Just a nightmare. Just a nightmare, and she was fine. Of course she was fine. She was probably sleeping and he'd see her in just five hours.

But.

She's still there, in his mind, delicate hairs curling over her neck and into her eyes and she kisses him, on the mouth, and he imagines that all girls must taste like sugary bubblegum and somehow it is not enough. Because she tries to pull away for air. Because he cannot waste any more time.

And she shouldn't look at other boys, at other people, at anyone else but him, because he is _right in front of her_ and he will _always be there_ and

Ryouji jams the heels of his palms into closed eyes, and lets out a breath.

He wants to be drowned and burned and killed in her.

* * *

"You know something?" her arms stretch back, over her head, young chest straining outwards for a pause— and then collapsing, as she breaks the pose, "You look familiar, like, you resemble a celebrity or something."

"Maybe we've met before," Ryouji jokes, leaning across the table, bone-colored hand grazing the side of her face as he tucks back some hair.

Her face lights up, and she smiles mischievously, "Maybe it's just destiny."

He slips

and then suddenly it is a monster touching his girl, a monster looking down at her, a monster that waits to destroy her, to devour her, to run up the skin of her stomach and thud over each rib until it found her heart

Ryouji jerks back, spindly-fingered and pale and human.

Minako pushes her straw in circles around the glass. The bit of sadness that never really left her worried tension around her eyes, "Ryouji? Don't look like that, I was only joking. Hey. You alright?"

"Of course," he replies automatically. His fingers curl into fists below the table. He feels claws, he feels talons. He feels the jut of her knee.

"You looked..." her head tilts, "Well, I don't know. Scared."

He laughs nervously and tries not to run.

She studies him a moment, then thwaps her skinny chest, "Hey, don't worry! I'll protect you! "

* * *

All those years, he'd burned her up.

Ryouji gnawed his lip, glancing around her room. Neat, as he'd expected. It was sliding back now, the memories. Of what had been and what would be and what was. He was taller than her now, taller as a young man than as a boy. And taller still as a monster.

He turns to her, shifts his hands up the length of her arms, curls his fingers into her skeleton and squeezes. Delicate bones, and weak ankles, and he _wants_. Violently, viciously.

He wants for her to run.

He wants for her to stop being the hero. Because it would _always_ be her. Even if she hadn't been on that bridge, even if she had been the twin who died, even if she had run from the shadows and time between midnight he would _still want her_.

"Please..."

"You know, Ryouji-kun," she whispers, "I never was afraid of death."


End file.
